Howard Firkin
It might be sanskrit, or a whisper heard
at night, an unknown shorthand, morse, a code.
You might have made it meaningless as birdsong;
it might be rain, or tyres on the road.
Why don’t you tell me when you understand?
It might be many things or one near truth;
it might tick like a bomb, hiss like the surf.
If only I could face you and the proof
of lovers decomposing into earth,
accepting it as what you always planned.

You wave, and leave me here to sort through drawers
for patterns left by sea-gulls in the sand,
for sounds between the breakers and their pause,
for anything to touch I understand.